Central Square Foundation has announced its support to Ciné Impact Fellowship. The non-profit is a leading organization in the education space and will support young filmmakers in capturing the importance of Foundational Learning in a documentary film.
Foundational Learning refers to a child’s ability to read with meaning and solve basic maths problems by the end of Grade 3. These are crucial skills which are prerequisites for learning in higher grades.
Launched by The Hyphen, Ciné Impact Fellowship aims to nurture new talent from the next generation of filmmakers for independent storytelling on social issues.
A cohort of 10 filmmakers will receive financial assistance in addition to cash prizes through a national short film competition.
While the participants will be vetted by an eminent jury of critics and filmmakers like Saibal Chatterjee, Utpal Borpujari, Arnab Banerjee and Faizal Khan, a week-long mentorship and handholding of the selected participants will be done under the mentorship of noted national award-winning filmmaker Brahmanand S Singh and National Award-winning Docu-Filmmaker Amitabh Parashar.
The Fellowship is open to any Indian under the age of 25 who aspires to become a filmmaker. The selected teams would be mentored by renowned Filmmakers in a week-long Filmmaking Bootcamp. The fellows will then work on making documentary films that highlight socio-economic impact on society.
Bikkrama Daulet Singh, Co-Managing Director at Central Square Foundation said, “The pandemic-induced school closures have led to massive learning loss among children which is likely to have very grave consequences over the next decade. A recent research by the Azim Premji University highlights that over 80% of children have lost out on at least one specific language and / or mathematical ability from the previous year across all classes. We hope that this documentary will raise awareness about the importance of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) among children in early-grades and encourage teachers, parents, and the community to play their role in helping them acquire these critical skills.”
Apresh Mishra, Founder, The Hyphen said, “We welcome CSF as a partner and thank them for supporting the initiative. The COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected education in India. Children have been out of school due to various lockdowns and restrictions. The film produced under the fellowship will aim to capture the challenges in FLN in the new normal.”
Talking about the fellowship program, Saibal Chatterjee, a national award-winning film critic said, “There is a wide range of issues that has to be tackled in the current situation. It would be exciting to watch the young ones making films on these issues as the youth are the ones who are full of creative ideas.”
Brahmanand S Singh, a national award-winning filmmaker and one of the mentors at the fellowship program said, “Filmmaking is changing the way people are approaching things. Number of times young people have great ideas but these are somewhere lost in terms of how it should be put together and how it should be shaped and that is where such mentorship can help. I am personally excited for the fact that I would be mentoring the finest young filmmakers. I am sure this initiative is going to make a great impact on youth and society.”
The Fellowship Applications started from 15th September 2021 and the last date for applying is 15th October 2021. Winners of the short film competition will be announced on 1st November 2021 and Grand Finale on 20th February 2022.
About Central Square Foundation
Founded by venture capitalist and philanthropist Ashish Dhawan, Central Square Foundation is a nonprofit organization working to improve learning outcomes of India’s school-going children.
